The hero Sigurd and his horse Grani
London BM - Franks or Auzon Casket 13c [8th cent CE] - The hero Sigurd and his horse Grani
In 1899, Sigurd Söderberg proposed that the right panel depicts "a representation of a scene from the Sigurd myth explained by Runic inscriptions."[28] In 1930, Eleanor Clark added, "Indeed, no one seeing the figure of the horse bending over the tomb of a man could fail to recall the words of the Guthrunarkvitha (II,5):
The head of Grani was bowed to the grass,
The steed knew well his master was slain."[29]
While Clark admits that this is an "extremely obscure legend,"[30] she assumes that the scene must be based on a Germanic legend, and can find no other instance in the entire Norse mythology of a horse weeping over a dead body.[31] She concludes that the small, legless person inside the central mound must be Sigurd himself, with his legs gnawed off by the wolves mentioned in Guthrun's story. She interprets the three figures to the right as Guthrun being led away from Sigurd's tomb by his slayers Gunnar and Hogne, and the female figure before Grani as the Norn-goddess Urd, who passes judgement on the dead. The warrior to the left would then be Sigurd again, now restored to his former prime for the afterlife, and "sent rejoicing on his way to Odainsaker, the realms of bliss for deserving mortals. The gateway to these glittering fields is guarded by a winged dragon who feeds on the imperishable flora that characterized the place, and the bodyless cock crows lustily as a kind of eerie genius loci identifying the spot as Hel's wall."[32]
www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_object...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franks_Casket
www.franks-casket.de/english/lid00.html
www.academia.edu/1464493/The_Bowman_who_takes_off_the_Lid...
The hero Sigurd and his horse Grani
London BM - Franks or Auzon Casket 13c [8th cent CE] - The hero Sigurd and his horse Grani
In 1899, Sigurd Söderberg proposed that the right panel depicts "a representation of a scene from the Sigurd myth explained by Runic inscriptions."[28] In 1930, Eleanor Clark added, "Indeed, no one seeing the figure of the horse bending over the tomb of a man could fail to recall the words of the Guthrunarkvitha (II,5):
The head of Grani was bowed to the grass,
The steed knew well his master was slain."[29]
While Clark admits that this is an "extremely obscure legend,"[30] she assumes that the scene must be based on a Germanic legend, and can find no other instance in the entire Norse mythology of a horse weeping over a dead body.[31] She concludes that the small, legless person inside the central mound must be Sigurd himself, with his legs gnawed off by the wolves mentioned in Guthrun's story. She interprets the three figures to the right as Guthrun being led away from Sigurd's tomb by his slayers Gunnar and Hogne, and the female figure before Grani as the Norn-goddess Urd, who passes judgement on the dead. The warrior to the left would then be Sigurd again, now restored to his former prime for the afterlife, and "sent rejoicing on his way to Odainsaker, the realms of bliss for deserving mortals. The gateway to these glittering fields is guarded by a winged dragon who feeds on the imperishable flora that characterized the place, and the bodyless cock crows lustily as a kind of eerie genius loci identifying the spot as Hel's wall."[32]
www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_object...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franks_Casket
www.franks-casket.de/english/lid00.html
www.academia.edu/1464493/The_Bowman_who_takes_off_the_Lid...